A Season in Hell & Illuminations

About This Title

Translated by Bertrand Mathieu

"With skill and imagination, Bertrand Mathieu gives us an intimacy of the spoken American that allows readers to absorb themselves in Rimbaud's private drama. As in an obsessive dream of our own, Rimbaud becomes a contemporary of youthful grief, rage, sarcasm and disgust . . . Bertrand Mathieu has earned our gratitude and praise for his accomplishment: to have given us Rimbaud's relevance today." —David Ignatow

Seascape

Machines of silver and copper— Prows of steel and silver— Threshing the foam,— Turning over stumps of bramble. The currents of the dunes, The immense ruts of the ebb tide Flowing circularly toward the East Toward the pylons of the forest,— Toward the timbers of the pier Against whose boards whirpools of daylight blow!